I stopped at the TJ’s on Ventura near Laurel Canyon today for emergency supplies (beer and wine and some frozen pizza to wash it down with) and when I walked in the door I was greeted by a table of Mystery Beer. The table held three TJ’s brown paper bags which each contained six randomly chosen beers. Some spoilsport killjoys had opened two of the bags and must have found the selection within unsatisfactory, because they were still on the table. I grabbed the third bag, still stapled shut, because I like a little mystery in my Mystery Beer.

This is what we found inside the bag:

I am a little disappointed in the Good People at TJ’s for the inclusion of an NA. I have nothing against Non-Alcoholic beer, but I think that should have been advertised as a possibility. That said, for $3.99 I have NO complaints, and I’d buy another.

Seriously, if you haven’t heard by now about the Hep A outbreak at Wolfgang Puck Catering, then you might be able to consider this a public service. Otherwise, this post is just overkill of the Defamer posts. And many entertainment sites. AND the radio this morning.

Anyways. Events catered from February 13th to February 20th may have been contaminated by a Hep A prep cook in Hollywood. Hep A is most often caught through contaminated food (link goes to Wikipedia), but I think that refers to shellfish – not people handling shellfish. Defamer’s having a field day though, and I think the only thing that would make it better, would be if they could only tie this into the death of Anna Nicole Smith.

I don’t often complain about the weather in LA, but if there’s one thing I miss about the midwest, it’s the storms. When people try to tell me there were thunderstorms in LA, I laugh at them because the ‘storms’ are normally little more than a bit of lightning and soft thunder within a few clouds with maybe a hint of rain. Hardly a thunderstorm. Also, the rain here is always cold. There isn’t ever nice warm rain, it’s always mean cold rain. So imagine my surprise when I saw this image at Pixel Rust:

Uhm, holy crap! That looks kinda midwestern-like after all! You can’t pick out the Hollywood sign in the background of any midwestern storm shot though. Did anyone else besides Dan see this monstrosity reach down from the sky yesterday? He says it was right above Hillhurst/Los Feliz. Anyone?

See his original post here.

Swung by the Homegirl Cafe on First Street in Boyle Heights today–across from Mariachi Plaza. (What a mess! When will the construction be done?! Sheesh.) Holy crap, is that awesome food. And it’s not just tasting good, it’s doing good–it acts as a training facility for girls in the Boyle Heights area who want to get into the cheffy thang. It’s all a part of Homeboy Industries, which was started by Father Gregory J. Boyle–a Jesuit priest who also founded Jobs For A Future. They provide employment opportunities, counseling, and even free tattoo removal!

And that’s some DAMN fine mole with chicken, ladies. Mmmmmm. The fish soup is delish as well. But the absolute don’t-miss is the coffee, lightly laced with cinnamon and some other spice I can’t identify–chicory? Taste receptors indicate function Unsure. I love the beautiful tattoo-style script on the tip jar.

Blogged to the sounds of Sunny Day Real Estate’s “Snibe.” What a bitchen’ proggy song.

Cafe located at 1818 E. 1st Street.

Oh, and watch the parking sitch: I came out to find a fitty-dollah parking ticket on my car. Sonsabitches.

LA is home to lots of full and part time students. We have a vast community college system, a few public four-year institutions and a few more private universities. One thing those students have in common is that many, if not most, rely on financial aid to help cover the rising costs of paying for tuition, books and other expenses.

March 2nd is the deadline in to apply for initial awards in California by submitting the Free Application for Federal Student Aid.

March 2nd is the most important date to remember. This is the deadline for the Cal Grant Entitlement and Competitive programs. In order to qualify for the Cal Grant A & B Entitlement Awards, Cal Grant A & B Competitive, and the Cal Grant C you must have your FAFSA and the GPA Verification form (with school certification) postmarked no later than March 2nd (link).

However, students attending community colleges have until September 2nd to submit applications to get the Community College Cal Grant Award.

Tell your friends, little sister/brother or neighbors!

I’ve been waiting for quite some time for this to happen. Google maps now has traffic for LA. Rawk!

Earlier this week, I was baffled when I turned the radio in my car and heard something twangy coming out of it. I looked down: 105.1. Wha????!!!??? Surely it had to be a mistake. I flipped my tuner to 92.3 for my classical music fix. And then a while later when I got bored, I flipped back to 105.1… Is this twangy stuff a mistake?

So this morning, I went to the K-Mozart website and found this notice:

K-Mozart has not gone away, we are still on FM in High Definition and also simulcast on 1260AM. From Monday February 26th at 6am, KMZT will be available on 1260am and HD2 105.1

We truly appreciate your loyal support and hope you will continue listening to K-Mozart on 1260am and on 105.1 HD2 Radio.

It turns out that the station at 105.1 on the FM dial will now be “Go Country 105.” K-Mozart will move to 1260 AM signal leaving KCSN (88.5) and KUSC (91.5) as the only two FM classical music stations in LA. KCSN is broadcast out of Cal State Northridge and is only audible in the Valley and the Westside. With KUSC, you have to put up with the incessant pledge drives (but there are no commercials). But I can tell you one thing… there is NO WAY I am going to listen to K-Mozart on AM radio. Who wants to listen to classical music on AM? Not me!

Do you remember losing KFAC (92.3) in 1989? I rightfully predicted at the time that someone else would step up in fill KFAC’s space on the dial. This time, I’m not making that same prediction… even though I wish it would happen.

Other coverage ::LA Times:: ::LA Daily News:: ::franklin avenue:: ::martini republic::

It’s been an exciting past few days when it comes to busts for LA law enforcement agencies. Sometime in the last few days the LAPD got their mits on one of their 10 most wanted gang members. Gangmembers all over town are keeping their fingers crossed and writing acceptance speeches hoping their name will be the lucky one chosen to fill the vacancy on the list. Of course this news was instantly trumped by Paris Hilton getting busted, again. She was pulled over for driving with no headlights on Sunset Blvd last night around 11PM. She also had a suspended license from that whole “alcohol-related reckless driving” from a few months back so her car was impounded. Her publicist said she’d just pulled out of a brightly lit parking lot and simply forgot to put on her headlights. I guess she simply forgot about the prior charges and suspended license as well. I wonder if someone feels entitled at all?

Perhaps you’ve seen this strange non-tagging tagging showing up lately; perhaps not.

About a month ago, my friend, Uma Nithipalan, a 27-year-old local theater actor, suffered a series of seizures while visiting her fiance, John, an L.A. musician who was touring in NYC. Turns out it was a ruptured brain aneurysm, and she’s been in the neurological ICU (a.k.a. Not A Picnic) at St. Vincent’s ever since. Stage 5 coma. Scary-bad, out-of-nowhere stuff. All-we-can-do-is-pray, “but she was so young“, there-but-for-the-grace-of-{blank} stuff.

In other words? Really. Not. Good.

But what kind of story would it be if it ended there? A piss-poor story. A limp and flaccid story. And even among thespians, Uma has always had a flair for the dramatic.
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The hilarious picture of the 15 year old tagging up the Mayor’s bus is a reminder that more often than not, graffiti is really thoughtless. But did you know that some taggers also attempt to contribute to the public discourse by grappling with current events and tackling philosophical concerns? Well, they do! And the results are sometimes very intelligent semi-intelligent mildly entertaining!

See the one above? That was placed in the Arroyo Seco as a service to lost tourists. Very thoughtful.
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I’d totally forgotten that there’s an election next week until I drove through Studio City on Ventura Boulevard today, heading home from a day of work in Sherman Oaks (no power on earth could compel me to take the 101 at 5:30 on a weekday). At the corner of Vineland (I think it was Vineland), a group of about six high school kids stood with signs that read “Tamar Galatzan for School Board” (the signs did not contain a hyperlink). They were jumping up and down, shouting and grinning, and one of them made motions for me to honk. When I did, they all cheered.

So, uh, what are we voting on, besides the school board? Any voter recommendations? I am really behind on all this stuff.

A few weeks ago there were these irritating sidewalk stickers advertising the movie Zodiac plastered up and down Melrose. WTF? Official advertising posted on sidewalk? Like those ads on the floors of the grocery store? I was horrified. This was crazy. I wanted it to stop. So I stopped, and took care of the problem my own way – pictures after the jump.
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I’d heard a preliminary restoration test was recently done on the Hill Street wall north of 11th where Kent Twitchell’s six-story-tall Ed Ruscha Monument mural previously resided before being illegally painted out last summer. So instead of catching the Blue Line at the 7th Sreet station, I detoured down Hill over to the Pico depot and in between went by to find a small patch of Ed’s hand uncovered (lower center/left) and the rest of him kinda sorta visible in silhouette from beneath the cover coat (click to biggify):

Before the boyfriend and I moved to SiFi, I used to commute in from Pasadena when I stayed at his house. The drive I established took me past Forest Lawn in Burbank every time. My grandmother is buried in Mt. Sinai, too, so I always had that moment to think about how beautiful the hills were in the morning light, and how Nana would have appreciated that.

Anyways. There is Forest Lawn in its early morning glory. It was one last moment of Zen before hitting the 101. I don’t miss the hour-long commute – but I do miss some of the scenery associated with it.

This new web-site, Trafficpredict.com sounds pretty cool if you have to commute. It’s a given that if you live in Los Angeles, you worry about what the traffic will be like when you get out there on the road. One of the things I try to do is check out sigalert if I’m gonna be on the freeway going anywhere…. but I usually only remember when I’m stuck in traffic that I should have checked alternate routes. Now with trafficpredict.com, you can see what it was like last week on Monday at 4pm, so you can predict what your current commute might be. You can also check what the current traffic status is. They even have surface street maps to check on.